Development Blog fight system

[ThTs]

Dear Players,

Due to the enormous Feedback we decided to publish a development blog about the new fight system.

In this blog it will be shown which parts of the combat system will be improved and who is working at which part of the feature. We want to give you a little insight with it, just like a “view behind the scenes”, how we plan new features, develop and implement them.

We decided to use the topic “fight system”, because it is drawing the most attention at the moment. It is important to us, that you will get more information to this exciting topic. That’s why we want to keep you up to date with a dev-blog.

Of course we also want to address, that we get feedback to the topic at the earliest point and reconsider it, in order to adjust controversial cases and do design them after your wishes and inputs resp. let your ideas slip in.

The information will be made available to you in the forums.

The blog will be written by Monti Talk - he is the new permanent Game Designer hired exclusively for Travianer/Travians.

Best regards,
Your Travians Support

[ThTs]

Hello and welcome to the first issue of our development blog, or briefly dev-blog.

At the moment we are diligently busy whipping into shape the new combat system. I think we all agree that there is still plenty to do. On the one hand, we will distinctly improve the system, as we have received some really critical feedback from you. On the other hand we of course need to finish it, so armor, weapons, bonus times etc. will be taken into account. I will now give you an overview about what topics we have already tackled. (And of course this is just the beginning.)

Just one more note: Until these changes make it into the game you will have to be patient. The full 1:1 fight should be easy to understand and also include everything that is used in the traditional fight, and for that we have to take the necessary time to complete it.

First, you criticized that fights often take too long and the event is being slowed down unnecessarily by the change of the preparation phase (choose your cards!) and the fighting phase (watch the fight in the arena!).

Yes, it may happen that a fight takes longer. That’s why we have now redesigned the system in such a way that now everything can happen on the same screen. Every player only chooses one “Action” (Off with the “Pokémon-Cards“) and will then see where the fighters are going. This has numerous advantages:

• You do not need to plan 3 moves in advance, so you are able to use your abilities more accurately
• You see yourself and your opponent in the arena, but at the same time you also see what actions you may choose next
• You will now be able to always see the HP and MP of your enemies
• Less time will elapse between the actions – it will be about as quick as the old fight system

We have simplified the controls in multiple aspects:

• You choose your next action just by clicking, no more dragging cards!
• You will now have four „Standard-Movements“ with you – move forward, backward, to the left and to the right will always be in the set, respectively you will only choose six more actions.
• You will now see more quickly what actions are available at the moment. If you don’t have enough MP for example, the action is marked red and blocked.

Of course we have considered carefully, how armor, skills and attributes will slip in to the fight. You have spent so much time and love on your fighter – this will of course be taken into account and will then be in the game too.

We also know that the game is very complex in the beginning and that a player can easily feel overwhelmed. How does everything work? What do I need to do? What can I do at all? Such questions should not even arise. Many things will be easier to understand if they come in small portions. Therefore we will redesign the selection of the attributes. You should have only a few actions to choose from in the beginning, effectively getting to know it, and with increasing experience more actions will be available. Of course you will then only meet fighters who are similarly well equipped.

Have I forgotten anything? Of course! But for today that’s enough. Next week there will be more news here, so stay tuned. And say hello to your Travian from me. I will think of him!

Best wishes,
Monti Talk

[ThTs]

Hello everyone!

Again and again the question is being brought up, if it is decided, that the old fight system will be replaced by the new one. And of course we have already said that this is not decided yet.

But when I say that on 11/3, on 11/4 they say: “That was yesterday! Today, the people ‘up there’ have already decided it over our heads.”

Despite all dark prophecies, people, you will co-decide. But, you will not be able to cast your vote today or tomorrow, in anger, or in the form of a thread where only a small part of the community participates. At the moment, two thirds of all the posts are full of insults, cynicism and teasing. Should we make decisions on this level?

I am saying that everyone who loves Travians, cannot be happy with a decision made by people who are agitated, or enraged about the final choice.

When the new fight system is in a state that we all are content with, then (and only then) we will watch closely what comes across better. And clearly, the one that comes across better will prevail. But for us it is also clear that the other one is certainly not going to be mothballed. We are not throwing something away as long as it works and is still popular. It will become apparent in which form the other system will be made available. There is really no secret plan, it is just completely undecided.

Until then you can use the time to give the new fight system a fair chance and to support us in making it good. You can still fully enjoy the old system. As a matter of course - don’t worry - even if everyone would suddenly vote for the new system, we would not decide it today or tomorrow.

Many players also vent their displeasure about us not reacting, or them talking to a wall etc. (“We just want the old system, we told you!”)

This is not the case. Of course you can imagine we do not decide in the morning what we will be working today. Indeed our work is planned ahead for weeks and months. This should not surprise anyone; it is not different for you for sure. Accordingly, it is not always possible for us to react quickly to your concerns. Some things like Bug fixes work faster, but especially in the game design (that’s my area), the lead time is much longer. Please understand this. We listen to you! Even from the most resentful I will try to extract something for this game. It really interests me what infuriates you here, and we are working to help you. Please be patient!

Actually we have also decided to look at the old fight system yet again and try to eradicate your points of criticism for it. In the end, the best versions of the old and the new system will be opposing each other. This is our target. May the best system win.

Something different: Some of you wrote about having problems with a 1 mbit internet access. I talked to one of the programmers of the new fight system. There should not be any problems with slower internet connections. We will investigate it, but even with a slow connection the new fight system should be easily playable.

Best Regards,
Monti Talk

[ThTs]

Hello Travians!

Once again, one week has passed and the work on the concept of the new fight system approaches the end.
So what is the news?

In the meantime it has been substantially agreed what fight actions will be available and how they can be unlocked as a player. With a really young Travian, you will not have as many actions to choose from. This simplifies the entry into the game and also avoids a rookie feeling overwhelmed. The more points you invest in your new fight skills (which function is confident for now), the more actions you will have to choose from.

Magic and myths have been left out for now. Instead, the main attention has been focused on giving you the feeling of fighting in a real arena of the ancient world. Your abilities will now reflect the actual behavior of a gladiator much better, an uproarious (and sometimes biased) crowd must not be missing, just like wild unleashed animals. So there will be much more new stuff to discover, but at the same time it will be essentially less complicated than before.

It also works so that you will be able to use your armor and weapons in your current form. So – everything you invested there will be usable in the new fight system too. There has also been a minor change… but will you even recognize it? ;-)

Best wishes,
Monti Talk

[ThTs]

Hello Travians!

In the meantime, the concept phase for the new fight system has been completed. Starting today, I will tell you how it will work. As there were many comprehension problems when the prototype was published, we want to tell you about the “rules of the game” much earlier this time.

Generally, you will always have the four “Standard-Actions” available, run to the left, to the right, downwards and upwards.
The other actions are divided into four types who can be distinguished easily by their color: Movements (blue), defenses (green), the belt (yellow) and, of course, attacks (red). The standard actions also count as movements.
Additionally, each of the actions will have a number that tells you how many AU (Action units) the action will use (yes, we used to call them MP).
In the fight, movements will always be done prior to defenses, defenses prior to the belt (potions), and attacks will be the slowest. If both opponents chose the same action type, the one that costs less AU will start first. If both actions need the same amount of AU, it will be decided randomly.

Now you know about the action types, and the order in which they are played. Next week there will be more details.

Best wishes,
Monti Talk

[ThTs]

Hello Travians!

It’s time for the weekly update of our blog. And a further insight in to the future game rules. You now know which actions can be executed, and in which order. This time you will get insight on how a fight round is structured.

In the prototype you had to plan three steps in advance, which made the issue quite unpredictable. To guess the next step of your opponent is ok, but what will he be doing secondly? And thirdly?

Well – in the future you will only have to plan “one and a half” steps in advance. You'll just need to select one action per round (Attack, Defense, Move, Potion from your belt), but if you like, you can additionally select a standard-action (“move one step in direction X”). That means: Even if you attack, you can move one step before that; even if you want to defend, you don’t need to stand like being glued to the spot. But: If you want to run away like a chicken, you will not be able to run quicker than your opponent, unless you are also using a movement action in addition to your standard action – and that will cost AU (Action Units). You can’t do that all the time.

Ummm… I think it’s enough for this week. I have read in the forum, that some people wish to be able to test the changes as soon as possible and not when it’s done. We’re are very likely not going to do this. At least not until all of it is ready, we don’t want to confuse you (and especially new players) with another half-done fight system. We are also thinking about turning off the current prototype of the fight system, as there won’t be much of it left anyway.

On that note – have further fun with Travians and a little more patience with us ;-)

Monti Talk

[ThTs]

Greetings from the land of the Travians!

This week we want to inform you about a new game mechanism which will be integrated into the modern battle system. In the prototype, you were starting every battle with a lot of AU. This allowed you to use mighty attacks from the start or even to defeat an enemy in one round. On the other hand: If you used up all your energy too early, you would be tempted to run away in order to restore your AU in peace. Those "tactics" pretty much ruined the gameplay for many players.

In order to solve these problems and to ensure a smoother battle flow, in the future, you will only have a small part of your AU-meter filled at the beginning of a battle. In return you will get a bit refilled at the end of each battle. Depending on how you develop your warrior, you can influence how much AU you start with, how many AU will be "regenerated" each round as well as your maximum amount of AU.

This element will also make things easier for beginners, as in lower grades the usage of AU is not that crucial, whilst Travians on a higher level will attack each other with plenty of special attacks.

And yet another novelty to share with you: Until now I only told you about our new concept. As a matter of fact only the unchanged prototype was playable. Last week, in-house, we finished a new prototype - graphically not that great, but nonetheless working - which includes most of the gameplay changes. This is not meant to be published and is only to be seen for testing purposes. And I can already tell you: It looks promising! It is already much more fun than what we have at the moment. I hope we can show you more, shortly, but it will be a few weeks until our tests are finalized.

Having said this, enjoy the land of Travians, and - see you next week!
Monti Talk

[Anbo]

Hello everybody,

In recent days I often encountered questions on the forums about whether and when we would come back to other topics on this blog. Well, as we have included in the Dev blog, we wanted to test it first exclusively on one subject, to see how you feel about the information. Therefore the topic, that seemed most appropriate at the time, was quite clearly: the new combat system.

Due to the overwhelming positive response from you, we want to establish the blog as a permanent institution. The next three weeks will exclusively be about the new combat system. Starting at the beginning of January, we will shift our focus to other topics. Please note that this blog is not ment to answer questions asked in the forum (with some exceptions). This is because we offer this blog in all language versions, and it could certainly be confusing for everyone to read in the blog what questions are asked and not see anything on your own forumposts about it.

Today I'll tell you something about "effects", which your character can be exposed to in combat. Certainly an attractive feature for advanced fighters, which will also be introduced at lower levels step by step. In the prototype, we already had a few effects that were caused by attacks, defenses, or potions. For example, if you have used a potion of strength, your attack power is increased permanently. Or if you have used the shield, the defense was significantly higher until next round.

Once your fighter is affected by an effect, an icon appears directly under the character. The background color shows you whether the effect is positive (green) or negative (red). The frame of the icon is black when the effect is permanent, and white when it will disappear after a certain time. So you can also analyse your opponents situation in a second: Does he have any benefits or disadvantages?
Because you are busy with fighting, you should not have to speculate what actions cause an effect. To aid you with this, the actions include a Tooltip description.

There will be basically three types of effects: effects that change the fighting power and defense. Effects that can prevent a hit. And finally, effects that increase the cost of the use of certain actions (such as movements or attacks). For example, once your opponent is constantly running away, you can paralyse him with a certain attack, so that he has to pay more AU (action units) to be able to continue doing this.

As you noticed, certain effects are an important tool for tactical fighters – just like the combat skills in the traditional battle system. I hope you have a lot of fun trying to find your favourite effects and craft your ideal strategy.

Friendly greetings and till next week,

Monti Talk

[Anbo]

Dear Travianers,

Due to recent events, we offer an extra edition of the Dev-blog today about the "Old battle system".
We have collected your feedback, today we would like to share the results and answer some burning questions.

On the subject of "capping" - there is really not much to say. We have adapted this system to your needs and are optimistic that we have taken care of it properly. We know it is and remains a difficult area, but at the same time, we understand from your comments that you appreciate the compromise we have taken.

The "abolition of automatic combat". It's really not easy to find a solution that pleases everyone. Some of course do not want to lose to inactive auto-playing opponents, however, others welcome it extraordinary that you are in combat and do not have to worry about it. Especially with feedback on the new combat system, many voices have expressed the opinion that it is irritating to have to constantly click during the whole fight. The original intention of the old battle system perhaps was not that you can let it play itself. But now it is possible, and many players have become used to it. We do not want to take it away from them.

About Autoblock - which is indeed related to the previous topic - we also have a statement. It is certainly true that a player who uses the auto block is less predictable compared to players who click themselves. Thus it might be advisable from a strategic perspective to let the system choose your direction. But the widespread assumption that the blocking probability is higher when the system selects the direction, is wrong. Attack and defense are not coordinated, and the probability that a strike is parried is always exactly one-third. Even if by chance an attack was blocked three times in succession, or even five times, the probability of the next hit is again a third. Of course, you always have a chance of bad luck. But this is really a coincidence. Therefore we can not change anything of course. That some of you use the Auto Block for tactical reasons (as mentioned earlier), is also a reason why we want to keep this function.

There is also some criticism from you about the wheel-of-fortune, particularly about the "Cappuccino". You say that with such elements, the battle for top rankings is becoming more and more expensive, and it seems "playing on top level" is more about "funding with money" than anythin else. Again, we take your feedback very seriously. But this is a very sensitive area, and we will think very carefully about what we do in this matter. There are some suggestions from you, and we've also made our own thoughts. We collect and analyse all of it carefully, because we do not want to offend anyone. Please give us a little more time - because a quick fix in this case will help nobody.

And then there was still the subject about damage calculation. Again not an easy topic ... There was, for example, the prominent proposal to simplify the calculation as follows: "Minimum damage = minimum damage value - half the defense" and "Maximum Damage = Max Damage value - half the defense." For example we take the following details: damage value 100-120, Defence 250. Because then you do 0 damage at minimum and also 0 damage maximum... It is by no means rare to have twice as much defense as maximum damage value. And now nothing works ... surely that's not what you want. This example shows: It is not easy to change something here. We need solutions without exceptions. A good formula always has to work correctly. "Bad luck, your specs do not fit in" does not fit our terms. This does not mean that we don't listen to good ideas, sadly we have not found a really good solution yet. There are some who have invested so much money in their defense that any change to this formula will be unpleasant, and their wishes must be respected appropriately. This is tricky! But do not fear - if you have a good idea, let us know. We are always open for your suggestions.

Well - this was again a lot of information. I'm curious about your reactions.

Greetings,
Monti Talk

[Monti Talk]

Hello dear Travianers!

Today will be the second last time we take a new look at the „modern fight system“, which we are still busy working and testing on. This week we’ll talk about „fight abilities”.

When you go to your profile and select the "Attributes" button, you will see a table which displays how many points you can put into your profession and into the eight fight skills. Misleading perhaps is the link to your right, which also states "fight skills"... This leads, however, to the actions of the modern fight system (that we used to call fight skills in the prototype). To avoid further confusion, we will not use this term anymore. We will replace the eight “fight skills” with six "fight abilities".

All six fight abilities contribute to the fight automatically. All you have to do is distribute your Attribute points in the attributes menu. The six fight abilities are the following:
1. "Darling of the public": the more points you invest here, the more likely it gets that the audience throws a random small potion to you every now and then. Certainly a risky investment - because it is of course always a matter of luck whether it actually happens and what kind of potion you’ll get. But who wants to take some risks can perhaps enjoy a major advantage at a crucial moment...
2. “Rampage”: The more points you invest here, the more likely it happens that fans in the audience throw eggs at your opponent (which will cost him some LE). Therefore works similar to “Darling of the public”.
3. "Beastmaster": When a fight exceeds a certain number of rounds (that is, if the fight is taking a long time), at the end of each round wild animals will be released to attack the players. With each round, their attacks get stronger... With this ability, you can protect yourself from the animals and at least reduce the damage.
4. 'Nasty Tricks ": Last week I told you about effects that make the use of certain actions more expensive for your opponent. How much it will cost him will depend on how many points you put into this ability.
5. "Quick start": In the first round, both fighters start with only a few AE. With this ability you will start with more AE, thereby enabling you to unleash a heavy attack right at the beginning of a match.
6. "Concentration": At the end of each round, the fighters will get a few AE automatically replenished. This ability increases the number you will get replenished.

In addition, all points you put into fight abilities, add up to a certain value we call your "combat experience". This decides what actions you can choose from! That means: If you invest a lot of points in fight abilities, you can also choose from a wider range of actions while creating your set of actions - but of course you always have to decide for precisely six of them in the end.

That's it for this week. I expect a lively discussion as always and look forward to next week. Best wishes,
Monti Talk

For feedback and discussion, please use this thread:
http://www.travians.com/vbb/showthre...g-fight-system